South Africa head coach Shakes Mashaba believes his side could have scored four goals against Senegal.

Bafana Bafana got their 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign up and running with a 2-1 win over the Teranga Lions at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane on Saturday.

Goals from Thulani Hlatshwayo and Thulani Serero steered the hosts to a moral boosting win over arguably Africa's most in-form team heading into the qualifying campaign.

Victory moved the hosts up to four points in Group D, level with Burkina Faso who recorded a surprise 2-0 win over Cape Verde in Praia.

Mashaba was unsurprisingly delighted with the result. Bafana Bafana, though, did profit from a slice of good fortune - referee Joseph Lamptey awarding a contentious penalty - before Serero guided him a superb second in the space of four minutes.

For South Africa the manner of the goals little mattered as they successfully held on to claim all three points, despite facing relentless pressure in the second-half of the clash.

"We needed this win. It was very important for us to get the three points in this game. I like to say to the boys, 'well done' - they did very well. I am happy for them. We should have scored four goals in this game," Mashaba said in the aftermath.

Mashaba continued: "That penalty... we had been praying in the week [that] if we could get a goal in the first 10 minutes it would help us, but I think that the two goals made life easy for us," he said.

"They didn’t expect us to score two goals against them. This caught them by surprise, but I think we did very well. We were lucky not to concede a penalty as well."